


To Ashes Turning

by fandomscolliding



Category: Red Robin (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Timkon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 04:06:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomscolliding/pseuds/fandomscolliding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe this world wasn’t real. There were other universes, right?…Maybe in another universe Conner and Tim were laughing in a diner. Eating something Bruce wouldn’t approve of and trying to get Bart to slow down long enough to have a proper conversation. Maybe if he fell far enough he’d crash through into that universe. Maybe there he’d be flying instead of falling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Ashes Turning

He never knew that it could feel like this. Whenever something terrible had happened—his dad dying, his place as Robin, a position that was always on shaky ground, being questioned—he felt that he was sinking deeper into a black despair. He felt like he was drowning, like the hell he was living in could be anything but real.

But this, this was different. He was up high this time, on the roof of Wayne Tower to be exact. He was austere and emotionless. He just could not bring himself to care anymore. Bruce was dead. A child had taken his place, Dick had all but abandoned him, Bart was dead, and Conner. Conner was gone too. It really seemed as if this world wanted nothing more than to burn his world to ashes.

And maybe he didn’t want to live in a world that worked so hard to destroy everything he loved. No, correction. Maybe he didn’t want to live in a world where he killed everything he loved, because what did all of the death, all of the pain have in common? Him. Timothy Drake.

So there he stood, his new suit an angry slash of red against Gotham’s poisoned night sky. He could see everything from here, it seemed. There was Crime Alley, the place where it all started. (Were the pearls still rolling in the water? Was a bullet still lying on the pavement?) There was his old apartment. (He wondered if they would ever get the blood out of the wallpaper, if they could ever lift it from the floors. If his dad’s ghost haunted the halls.). There was where he first went on a mission. And there, right there is where he and Conner used to laugh. (But there wouldn’t be anymore laughter, not for Tim at least.)

And as he stood up there he felt like the cold wind whistled right through him. Was he made of blood and bones and muscles or of sorrow and anger and death? Was he real anymore? Was anything about him real? He could lie so well, too well. Lies to his parents, to his friends, to Bruce, to Dick. Even to his Clone-boy. Lies built upon lies. A persona made of fiction. A hero in a comic book, not real life.

But here he was. Standing on a roof instead of attending the party. He had seen the pride, the love, the joy in Dick’s eyes when he introduced Damian as his little brother. And he was sickened by it, by the farce that they were living. Tim was a byproduct, a hollow cast of the dead bird that came before him, a shadow that could never be the boy that made it. He wondered if Dick ever really loved him, or if he just loved the idea of him.

Maybe this world wasn’t real. There were other universes, right? Tim dipped forward, the horizon swaying as he balanced, precarious at the edge of the building. Maybe in another universe Conner and Tim were laughing in a diner. Eating something Bruce wouldn’t approve of and trying to get Bart to slow down long enough to have a proper conversation. Maybe if he fell far enough he’d crash through into that universe. Maybe there he’d be flying instead of falling.

Or maybe there his world was burned to ashes too—Superboy still dies, Batman lives on while his second dad disappears into the ground, his brothers still don’t care enough to see that he isn’t ok. Maybe in that world they still didn’t notice that he hadn’t been ok in such a long time. Maybe there wasn’t a world where Tim Drake—or Tim Wayne, or whoever he was these days—won. He tips back for a moment, his arms coming out to balance him, his eyes taking in a sky of grey clouds and weak light.

No, he wasn’t drowning in sorrow. Not this time. He was climbing the mountain of sorrows, hoping there was a peak somewhere. Hoping that there was a point at which it would end. But maybe it already had, maybe that’s where he was now. A gust of wind tips him forward again. He was a Robin, right? Even in this costume, with Kevlar like blood across his chest and a cowl like an executioner’s over his face, he was still a Robin. He still had wings. Maybe tonight he’d try them out. Maybe he’d fly a hundred stories and paint wings in blood on the cement. Maybe then he’d be able to fly to a world where everything was ashes and he was the one setting fires.


End file.
